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Maeil News – How To Fine-Tune People Decisions

Maeil News – How To Fine-Tune People Decisions

Recruiting top talent may give companies a competitive edge, but how can firms fine-tune their people decisions? In an interview with the South Korean business daily Maeil News, Egon Zehnder senior adviser Claudio Fernández-Aráoz identifies common recruitment pitfalls and key trends in talent management today. A typical trap is WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is), which is a fast, basically unconscious or intuitive form of thinking that results in snap judgements as opposed to the deliberate, analytic thinking that all good people decisions call for. One way to combat WYSIATI is to introduce the hiring batting average (HBA) or assess the interview skills of your staff/success of interviewees, notes Fernández-Aráoz. This simple technique has at least four great benefits: it enables firms to identify their best interviewers; it forces them to review people decisions early; it prompts interviewers to raise their game; and it motivates managers to stay in closer contact with new hires, perhaps even to the point of coaching and mentoring them.

In Fernández-Aráoz’s experience, the search for top talent these days is primarily a quest for potential. Leadership roles subject to constant change require individuals who can constantly learn, grow and change with them, he explains. High potentials should be motivated by a blend of fierce commitment and deep personal humility and show four key leadership attributes: curiosity, insight, engagement, and determination. At the other end of the scale, Maeil News asks if there is any way to maintain loyalty and manage low performers? While compassion often deters us from firing, the long-term consequences of inaction can be negative for the individual concerned, warns Fernández-Aráoz. In his view, tough love is ultimately kinder. “Candor and concern for those around you are two essential moral obligations of any leader,” Fernández-Aráoz concludes.